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The world’s largest oil and gas company is building a campus off Interstate 45 at the Hardy Toll Road for some 10,000 workers.

Indeed, the job market is driving the buying frenzy.

In 2012, the median price per square foot for a single-family house was up 4.2 percent over the previous year, to $74.25, according to an analysis of home sales in five area counties commissioned by the Houston Chronicle. That’s slightly higher than when the market peaked in 2007 and a striking increase in a place where the average price typically rises around 2 percent a year.

Experts say this trend will continue as inventory remains low and demand soars.

“We are coming into the really hot selling season,” said Evert Crawford of the Institute for Regional Forecasting at University of Houston’s C.T. Bauer College of Business. “It’s going to be a really interesting spring and summer.”

Areawide, home sales were up 10.6 percent in 2012 over the previous year, according to the housing data, which looked at sales in 1,882 Houston-area neighborhoods handled through the Houston Association of Realtors Multiple Listing Service.

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